


The Five Stages of Dean

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's spent his whole life preparing for his death ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Five Stages of Dean

_  
**Denial**   
_

“Do you want some ice cream, Dean?” Daddy’s talking to him, but his words are like the stars in this strange city’s sky: too faint and distant to touch. Daddy waits for a few minutes, and Dean can feel Daddy’s silent pleas beating against his skin like flames. _Just say something, kiddo. Just one word, okay?_ But Dean just sits there, rocking Sammy back and forth a little in his arms, and eventually Daddy goes away.

The truth is that Daddy can beg all he wants, but Dean’s not talking. Dean’s not talking because none of this is real. It’s all some horrible, horrible dream that he’s trying to wake himself and Sammy up from, and if he talks … if he opens his mouth and answers his Daddy …

Then this isn't a dream after all, and Mommy’s never coming back.

 **  
_Anger_   
**

“What the hell is your problem?” Sammy demands, after Dean’s managed to actually connect with his brother’s face for the fourth time in what was supposed to be no-contact sparring. Dad calls a break to check Sammy’s split lip and then he sends Dean for twenty laps around the motel—to cool off, is all he says, in that neutral tone of voice he has. Dean looks for questions in his father’s eyes and finds none.

As he sprints away, sweat practically flowing down his back in the mid-July heat, he wonders if Dad knows too. Wonders if he’s the only one who found the acceptance letter hidden at the bottom of Sammy’s knapsack.

 **  
_Bargaining_   
**

Dean’s made kind of a deal with the God he doesn’t believe in: he kills all the evil shit he comes across, and God keeps Sammy safe. And if, someday, Dean manages to kill enough of them, God brings Sammy back to him.

At night, he can hear John’s whispered prayers as he stares at the darkened ceiling. He can’t quite make out what his father says, and sometimes he wonders if John’s made a bargain of his own, but he can never quite find the words to ask him.

 **  
_Depression_   
**

Sam won’t leave him alone about it. Keeps prodding at him like some kid picking at a scab—and not his own scab at that, the asshole—until Dean’s ready to drop his brother at the side of the road and leave him there. One night, when he dumps Sam at the motel and heads out for a drink, he almost keeps going.

Dean passes the bar and turns onto the interstate. He’s been traveling for almost an hour before he thinks of the sunrise, spreading out before him—like flames on asphalt, like a bonfire burning the world _(burning his father)_ —and then, sweating, he yanks the wheel to the side, drives across the median, and heads back to the motel.

He’d have been leaving his favorite gun behind, anyway.

 **  
_Acceptance_   
**

Dean can’t stop smiling. Sam thinks he’s gone nuts, but that’s okay because Sam’s thinking. Sam’s breathing and talking and bitching at him and being his usual prissy, annoying self, and Dean is so fucking relieved that he can’t help laughing.

‘We’ll fix this,’ Sam tells him, and ‘I’m gonna save you,’ and Dean nods and smiles. He drinks his brother in and drags Sam around the country and can hardly sleep at night for watching the kid’s chest rise and fall: a motion both easy and natural.

T-minus three hundred twenty five days and counting, and he’s going to be dragged down to Hell where, let’s face it folks, he’s long overdue.

Dean’s going to die, but Sam’s going to live, and in the end, that’s all that really matters.


End file.
